


Gratitude

by ladielazarus



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-24
Updated: 2010-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladielazarus/pseuds/ladielazarus





	Gratitude

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Current location:** |  [home](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=home)  
---|---  
**Current mood:** |   
cold  
**Current music:** | TMNT  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fanfic100](http://community.livejournal.com/kit_fic/tag/fanfic100), [fic](http://community.livejournal.com/kit_fic/tag/fic), [pryde/wisdom](http://community.livejournal.com/kit_fic/tag/pryde/wisdom), [thanksgiving](http://community.livejournal.com/kit_fic/tag/thanksgiving)  
  
  
_**093 Thanksgiving**_  
Title: Gratitude  
Fandom: X-men  
Pairing: Pryde/Wisdom  
Prompt: 093 Thanksgiving  
Rating: PG  
A/N: I dunno. It's Fluff+angst. It's Flangst. Hee. Based on Salvageverse.  
Beta by [](http://sniperct.livejournal.com/profile)[**sniperct**](http://sniperct.livejournal.com/)

  
She's still sleeping. She's been sleeping since she stumbled down the gangplank of that stolen skrull vessel and collapsed into his arms.

Right before she'd lost consciousness, she'd managed to say “My hero...” and then she was gone again, her faint breath pushing against the skin of Pete's neck as he'd carried her, as quickly as he could, back into the medlab.

Faiza says that with the stress to her system and everything she's been through that the best course of action is probably to just let her sleep it off before she tries to heal her. Of course, she doesn't think that Pete knows that she's tried already.

She's trying not to worry Pete, but it's remarkably ineffective. He's dealt with doctors long enough to know when something is wrong, and at the moment, it's really obvious that his young, Muslim doctor-turned-superhero just has no idea on Earth what to do.

It's been three days. Pete is sitting in a chair by the bed as he has been whenever his business as director hasn't pulled him away. Brian has generously taken most of the duties on himself so that Pete is free to sit and wait for her to wake up.

She has to wake up. The monitors that Faiza's got her hooked up to are beeping happily away, marking the seconds audibly. However, at this point, they might as well be the machine that goes 'ping' as far as Pete's concerned. They're just reminding him that she could very well spend the rest of her life here at MI-13's medlab as a vegetable.

He can't think about that. He can't let himself think that he'll lose someone else. Not again. Not after Romany, his mum, Maureen. Of course, Pete had always known, deep down, that with the shite he'd done in his life that happiness was never going to come easily to him, but somehow, with Kitty, he'd managed to maintain it anyway.

And so, he'd settled for the phone calls. The few fleeting, transatlantic, views into her life that seemed to be humming along right on track. She was back with the Russian, which seemed to be making her nauseatingly happy, and she absolutely loved teaching. He listened to her babble away for hours when he should have been sleeping and, occasionally, saving the Realm through paperwork. But still, he listened. He listened because even twenty minutes of her talking about her life with someone else was twenty minutes in which she was part of his.

And then she'd gone into space. She'd taken off in that big, fucking bullet, and he'd had to stop himself from drinking until the pain finally stopped. It'd taken days to even convince himself to get out of bed, and truth be told, in the end, it was Brian what did it. Braddock had pulled him out of bed and essentially dragged him into view of a newspaper. That's all it took to pull him back in. Three children killed ritualistically. Pete couldn't sleep knowing that a fourth might happen as a result of his self-pity. Besides, he told himself, he hadn't really been mourning for her. He'd been mourning for what he was afraid he'd become without her.

  
But, she is back now. Back from space. Back from the dead. She is alive. She's going to wake up and he'll get to talk to her again. See her smile. Hear that glorious laugh. She's going to be fine.

He knows he should call them. The codger, especially, doesn't deserve to think that his good friend and star pupil is lost in the far reaches of the final frontier when she is lying warm and safe in a med-lab in London. He should get up, call San Francisco, or wherever the bloody Yes-Men were harboring themselves these days, and let them know that she is back.

However, calling them would mean calling him. It would mean letting the Terminator know that Kitty was alive and here, and the big metal moron would be on his way to London in a matter of minutes to sit where Pete was and glare menacingly at him every time he thought that Pete was getting too close to 'his Katya.' And despite the fact that Pete knows that he'd do the same in the Russian's place, frankly, the idea of having him here is nauseating.

When she wakes up-- When, he reminded himself, not if-- there'll still be plenty of time for her to call them herself. And there is really no point in telling them she's alive and well until she wakes up. Of course, he knows, on some level, that he is only buying time, but as long as it means that she is here, he can live with that. Even if the Russian pounds him into pulp when he finds out that Pete didn't tell him. After all, Pete would do the same if he found out that Piotr was hiding Kitty from him. He'll melt that bridge's spinal chord when he comes to it.

Faiza comes in to change the IV bag, and she smiles sympathetically at Pete.

“No change?” She asks, checking Kitty's pulse and adjusting the drip. She picks up the chart and makes a few notations.

“You'd be the first.” Pete wishes he didn't sound to bitter, but he really hates obvious questions.

“Right. Well, I'm going into a meeting, so page me if anything changes, yeah?” She brushes some stray hair off of Kitty's forehead and walks back out of the room.

“Right.” Pete re opens his newspaper as Faiza leaves. There's another tube strike on the horizon, and Chelsea is actually winning for once. He'll have to tell her when she wakes up. She'll be happy to see her posh blue boys succeeding.

He reaches over and squeezes her hand again, like he does every so often. He wants to see if she'll squeeze back. Once again, his efforts yield no result, but the feel of her skin is reassuring. It's still ridiculously soft, but that's because of Meggan.

Meggan keeps putting lotion on Kitty's hands and arms. She says that her skin is very dry without it. Pete imagines that it's a side effect of the extreme cold of space. Meggan has also been washing Kitty's hair and painting her fingernails. She argues that it will be nice for Kitty to feel pretty when she wakes up. At the moment, Kitty's nails are bright blue. Pete imagines that the colour alone will be enough to shock Kitty into coherence when she wakes up.

Pete sighs, letting go of her hand and returning his focus to his paper. Ironically, he glances at the headlines and sees that it's Thanksgiving Day in America. Right. An America that doesn't realize exactly how much thanks it owes to the girl lying in this hospital bed. A girl that was happily willing to die for them all, when they'd protested her right to even live there just because she could move through walls.

  
He realizes, with a sigh of resignation, that he can really only stay about another fifteen minutes, and then he's got to go conduct a strategy meeting. It's probably going to take at least two hours, and then he should really shower and eat something before he comes back down here for the night.

It's the groan that distracts him. It's the first noise he's heard her make in weeks, and he folds his paper so fast that he actually gives himself a paper cut.

However, it appears that it was an isolated incident when she does nothing further. Still, he finds his attention riveted to her face, and he stays that way for what feels like forever. It's probably only about two minutes.

Suddenly, her eyelids flutter open, and she scans the ceiling briefly before panning her gaze over to where he sits, sleep-deprived, and scruffy, and, after a moment, she smiles. Her voice croaks, tired and rusty from disuse.

“Hey, stranger.”

Pete Wisdom knows that he's not American, but today, he's got an awful lot to be thankful for. 


End file.
